They lingered over dinner until they were the last patrons in the restaurant. Lee pushed food around on his plate and managed to eat some, but his stomach felt as twisted as the jumbled heap of rice noodles in the house special dish.
Kathy had a healthy appetite, though, expertly plucking food from her plate with her chopsticks, placing it between her startlingly white teeth. She pierced a piece of pineapple with one chopstick and put it in her mouth.
"Mmm, I like it when they give you fruit for dessert." She glanced at Lee's plate. "You didn't eat very much."
"My appetite comes and goes." What he wasn't ready to tell her was that for six months after Laura's disappearance, he had hardly eaten at all, living mostly on liquid protein drinks.
"Hmm," Kathy said. "We need to put some weight on those bones."
She thinks I'm too thin. Still, he thought the use of "we" was promising.
"Oh, I can eat like a horse sometimes," he said. "Don't you worry."
"You know better than to tell a woman you can eat a lot without gaining weight, right?"
"Yes, I think I know that much," he said, laughing. He felt grateful for her presence-it lightened him and made his heart quicken.
Lee looked around the restaurant. The other customers had long since left, and the staff sat around one of the round tables, rolling wontons. He thought they were trying hard not to glance at him and Kathy.
"Well," he said, "we're keeping these poor folks up. We should pay and get out of here."
He began to take out his wallet, but Kathy laid a hand on his wrist. "This one is on me."
When her fingers touched his skin, he felt the heat exchange between them, and wondered if she felt it too. If she did, she gave no sign, pulling her own wallet out of a small black knapsack. She selected a credit card and waved it at the waitress, who nodded and returned with the bill.
"Thanks," Lee said as they walked up the crooked narrow steps and into the nearly deserted street. Since September eleventh Chinatown had suffered. The formerly robust flow of tourist dollars slowed to a thin, anemic trickle. The mayor himself was making frequent pleas to people to go down to the struggling community and spend whatever they could afford.
They stepped out into a misty evening. The temperature had soared twenty degrees in the past twelve hours, bringing with it a soft dusting of rain. The droplets hung suspended in the air, as if not quite heavy enough to fall to the ground. The yellow neon lights of a teahouse across the street were surrounded by halos, round rings of layered light shimmering like ripples on a pond.
"It's really so beautiful that it's painful, isn't it?" she said.
Oh, yes, he wanted to say. From where I'm standing, at least. But he just said, "Yes, it is."
They strolled in the direction of the subway. Parts of Chinatown still had the grim, gray look of a war zone. Shopkeepers were still dusting soot off their stacks of rice dishes, mahogany Buddhas, carved jade bulls, and brightly colored paper birds.
"I felt guilty, you know, not being here when it happened."
"What could you have done?"
"As it turns out, nothing. My work is only just starting. I'm part of the body identification team." Her sigh was a deep, ragged sound. "Complete remains are almost unheard of-mostly it's bits and pieces. Most people just disintegrated."
They both stared at the traffic on Canal Street for a moment. Lee glanced at his watch, surprised to see how late it was.
"Are you returning to Philly tonight?"
"Yeah. I'm seeing my dad tomorrow. He's preparing a presentation for the Vidocq Society, and he wants my help."
"Wow," Lee said. "Your father is a member?"
"Yeah. Going on ten years now."
The Vidocq Society, based in Philadelphia, was named after Francois Vidocq, the brilliant eighteenth century French criminal who became a detective later in his life. The society was devoted to solving cold cases that people from all over the world brought to them. Membership was by invitation only, and Lee thought there wasn't a forensic professional alive who wouldn't consider it an honor to join the group. All the members were prominent in their respective fields.
"How often do they meet?" Lee said.
"Once a month, in the Public Ledger Building. It's an interesting place, very old-world, with thick Oriental rugs and big, heavy drapes-sort of Edwardian, really. The kind of place Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft would have liked. When I first saw it, I imagined that's what Mycroft's club would look like."
"You're a Conan Doyle fan?"
She gave a lopsided little smile. "Isn't everyone?"
"So your father's a member of Vidocq-that's impressive. Is he an anthropologist too?"
"He's a forensic toxicologist."
"Is that what got you interested in forensics?"
"Sort of."
"I'm sure he's proud of you."
"I guess. You know how fathers are, though."
No, Lee thought, I don't, but he said nothing.
He walked her down the subway stairs and stood with her by the turnstiles as she waited for the train. On Sunday evenings they didn't run very often, and Lee found himself wishing the train would never come.
They stood next to each other, their bodies at an angle, half facing the tracks, half facing each other.
He glanced at Kathy. What was it she'd said? Bones are heroic. Kind of a mystical notion-though there was nothing mystical about her. With her brisk, short haircut, black leather knapsack, and firm, determined chin, Kathy Azarian was not an ethereal person. In a world where planes drop out of the sky, towers crumble and fall, and young woman are snatched abruptly from their lives, Kathy had a solid, three-dimensional presence that was reassuring.
Standing close to her, he could feel a connection between them like a current. He looked around the subway station, which was practically deserted. Contentment settled over him like a blanket, and he could have stood there all night, next to her, waiting for a train that never came.
But soon the number-nine local train came clattering into the station, its headlights snaking around the corner like the yellow eyes of a mythic beast.
"Okay," Kathy said, feeding a token into the slot. "I'll see you soon-you have my number."
At the last second, before sliding through the turnstile, she turned and planted a kiss on his neck. She seemed to be aiming for his cheek, but she was so much shorter than he was that, in her haste, she missed and caught his neck instead. Her lips were soft and warm, and caught Lee by surprise.
He turned his head to reciprocate, but just then the train rattled to a halt, the doors slid open, and she slipped through the turnstile and made a dash for the nearest car, stepping inside just as the warning bell sounded. The doors closed, the train rumbled out of the station, and Lee was left alone, staring at an empty platform. But his heart felt full, and his head was light. For the first time since his sister's death, since 9/11, since all the horrors of the past weeks, he could imagine what it was like to feel whole again. He headed toward the stairs leading up to the street. It was such a beautiful night he had decided to walk the mile or so back to East Seventh Street.
His attackers seemed to come out of nowhere.
He never saw the first blow coming. It was a sucker punch-a karate chop to the base of his neck-and it sent him stumbling forward. He turned to face his assailant, but another blow caught him from behind, this time to the kidneys. He went down on his knees, hard, only to find he was being lifted to his feet by strong hands, to be hit again-and again. Most of the punches were body blows, for which he was oddly grateful-he hated being hit in the face. But they hurt just the same. The jabs were hard and short and quick, the work of professionals. He never got a chance to throw so much as a single punch.
The two men made quick work of him, hitting him swiftly and soundlessly. It was all over in less than two minutes. They left him crumpled on the subway platform, leaning against the wall, dazed and bruised.
The only thing he could be sure of later was that they were both stocky, both wearing ski masks covering their faces, and he was pretty sure they were both white. Other than that, they could have been anyone.
He heard the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps, and then sank into darkness.